Microtransactions have become a sort of hot topic in full priced AAA games of late, thanks to controversies surrounding loot boxes in games such as Star Wars Battlefront 2, Shadow of War, Forza Motorsport 7, Destiny 2, and many more. With public outcry over exploitative monetization, and actual game rating bodies such as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) doing the bare minimum to properly try and educate customers on potentially abusive in game monetization, a website has cropped up that takes matters into its own hands.
Microtransaction.zone (via PCGamesN) is a new site that aims to give its readers a rundown of exactly what sort of monetization scheme the games they’re looking for might employ. It has a number of badges and tags that it uses to convey this information at a glance. The database appears to be fairly extensive already, and even with some deficiencies present in the site at the moment, it is clear that this is an admirable initiative that will grow over time.
And maybe this additional awareness it imparts to customers will serve to make publishers even warier of trying to pull a fast one on their customers ever again…